132 EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 



Applying to these verses the chronological test 

 of science, a science now not based on theory but 

 on the undeniable evidence of nature, Sir Bertram 

 Windle appositely says : 



Here we arrive at the second milestone in the path of 

 progress, for not only do we find ourselves confronted by life 

 but for the first time with the sentient life, and, as already 

 said, it is described at the place where science tells us that it 

 might be looked for. Now here we have another agreement 

 between the Scriptural and scientific accounts, for the evolution- 

 ists will certainly not deny that zoological life seems first of all 

 to have originated in the sea; that it was preceded by the ap- 

 pearance of vegetable life; that fishes did come before birds 

 and that the gigantic saurians which it is suggested may have 

 been intended by the Hebrew word commonly but probably in- 

 correctly translated "whales" were a very remarkable feature 

 of the period of geological time at which we have now ar- 

 rived, since some of them attained a length of at least fifty 

 feet. It has also been pointed out that it is somewhat re- 

 markable that the writer, of course unfamiliar with science, 

 should have grouped birds with fishes and not with mammals, 

 which would have seemed much more natural. Yet in doing 

 so he is acting quite correctly. 5 



We understand well enough that only the 

 lowest types are found in the earliest strata, and 

 that there is no sharply marked cleavage. In- 

 vertebrate animals appear long before the highly 

 advanced vertebrate fishes. The inspired writer 

 deals only with the perfect organisms and the 

 highly developed forms of life. He was not to 

 write a textbook of science, a discussion of verte- 

 brates and invertebrates. His picture was neces- 



6 "The Church and Science," pp. 181, 183. 



